Rethinking Social Theory and Later Life

Abstract

This book aims to provide a critical reflection on existing episetemplogies of aging and alternatively, introduce post-structuralist insights to aging studies and later life. We will examine how aging appears to be individualized in neo-liberal western culture. It can be argued that whilst aging has become individualized, the limitation of existing epistemologies is in their ontological war with each other: positive aging versus social oppression. What this book seeks to do is to provide an alternative exploration of aging by introducing post-structuralist theory using two themes of 'narrative' (stories of aging) and 'trust' (relations of aging) - both as examplar social issues and conceptual tools. Indeed, we need to ask what are the conditions which allow narrative and trust to be formed and performed relating to aging.